Talk:Hand-waving

Poem relevance
From the article:


 * This page is dedicated to Stevie Smith author of the poem Not waving but Drowning.

This isn't a very useful contribution. Please don't do this. -- The Anome 22:48 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * It is a very useful addition. Please don't remove it.Harry Potter 23:57 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * You'll have to explain the relevance of the poem, please, otherwise it looks totally out of context. Evercat 23:58 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Literal interpretation - what is the motion?
Question from a non-native english reader: What does handwaving mean in a literal sense? I mean, what movement of the hand/gesture is described by this term? I think this should be added to the article. Thank you. I've done it myself. &#91;unsigned&#93;
 * Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I've removed the section. Robin S (talk) 23:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please note: I also removed a speculative comment about Jedi mind tricks which had been added to this section, as it appeared to be original research. Robin S (talk) 23:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Not limited to math and physics
"used in math and physics"

actually, the term is used in pretty much every technical field, and in business. &#91;unsigned&#93;

Definition?
The first definition seems odd:
 * "both hands up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the handwave)"

I tried doing this, and got no gesture that I have ever seen, more like some sort of dance move or something. What I got was a sort of winshield-wiper motion. Either the definition is wrong, or is poorly expressed. The second definition, listed as a mere alternative, is basically the only one I've seen: "alternatively, holding the forearms in one position while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter." Herostratus 14:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree that handwaving should be contrasted with abstract nonsense. Handwaving connotes a lack of precision. An argument can be concrete without being imprecise. 128.101.152.18 16:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Etymology
Does this phrase come from Obi Wan Kenobi's famous "these aren't the droids you're looking for" or predate it?


 * Predates it. My high school math teacher talked about "handwaving" and "handwavy proofs" (no doubt quoting his own, earlier college teachers) back around 1972. -Potosino 02:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Relative frequency of "handwavium" and "unobtainium"
I found the following comment in the article. Since its point seems to be to argue about whether the article ought to mention "handwavium" at all, rather than to provide encyclopedic information to a non-editor reader, it belongs here on the talk page. Thus moved. –Henning Makholm 00:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: handwavium is a rarely used term, with only 402 occurrences (excludes Wikipedia) found using Google (4/2007). By contrast, the terms unobtainium (and British variant 'unobtanium') have 159,500 unique occurrences. However, handwavium is mentioned in World Wide Words: Unobtanium.

Missing something
I'm almost dead certain that this article used to mention the Jedi handwave. I think it still should. Whether that concept was the genesis of this term, or George Lucas came up with the Jedi mind trick gesture as an homage to an existing term, I don't personally know (judging from the "1972" testimonial above, probably the latter), but it's pretty clear that the term's popular currency has a lot to do with Star Wars. I'm pretty sure that the Jargon File documents this pretty well (though I wouldn't bet my life savings on it; the JF changes a lot over time, just like WP). Anyway, the point was I think this was in there at some point, and now it's not, and that's a shame. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 13:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Literary Criticism
Jedi mind trick? Role playing games? What does this have to do with literary criticism? Who wrote this section, the high school chess club? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.4.81 (talk) 20:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Mike Francesa
I have reverted two anonymous attempts to add the paragraph
 * New York Sports Radio personality Mike Francesa uses the handwave to signal his producers to cut off a caller on his show. This handwave is used in a dismissive manner, letting the caller know that Mike is done with them.

and
 * Mike Francesa of Mike'd up and WFAN is a huge supporter of the handwave. Though some may argue he is the original inventor of the handwave, effidence is hard to find. Mike uses the handwave technique to dismiss phone callers from his show.

First, this is an entirely different case of handwave than the one discussed in the article. A dismissive (actual) hand gesture is something entirely different from the (metaporical) handwave in lieu of argument this article is about. Second, the addition is completely unsourced -- the article in general is not very well sourced (and might not survive and AfD if anyone cared enough to take it there), but attempts to promote a specific named person as a source or prominent example of a cultural phenomenon can reasonably be held to a higher standard of sourcing. We need reliable secondary sources before anybody in particular should be listed as prominent handwavers. –Henning Makholm (talk) 22:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent self-reflexive article example (unintended)
This article has no footnotes, citations or substantiation. The explanations and content range from weak to vacuous. There appears to be extensive original research and many questionable claims presented as fact while many obvious claims, questions and possible allusions are unaddressed.

And the central and most basic question remains unanswered: what is the connection between the physical act of hand-waving and this very common colloquial term? (Does it refer a student waving their hands for attention? A magician waving her hands to conceal something?  A Jedi waving his hands to cloud someone's mind?  A politician waving her hands to the crowd? ...?)

RBarryYoung (talk) 18:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Origin of 'Hand Waving' as an inadequate idea of Proof ?
While there is an apparently 'obvious' genesis of the term, such as the one provided by http://handwaving.askdefine.com/: "The term derives from the use of gestures to add emphasis when stating arguments, and the tendency to continue or increase the gesturing as a substitute for mathematics, when an argument is hard to put across or the proponent is tired of deploying words and/or symbols." , there may in fact be an alternative origin.

George Edward Moore advanced the idea that one could prove the existence of the world by waving his hands. There are a number of references that I have found which seem to refer to "G.E. Moore's hand-waving" (see for example "G.E.Moore's hand-waving" - Philosophy and Its Others: Ways of Being and Mind By William Desmond, "G.E. Moore's hand-waving" -The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint By Sandra Lee Mensse and GE Moore Hand-waving argument

None of this constitutes proof that this is the origin of the term, but if you read this website's rationale for its name, then quite clearly there is an undercurrent of thought that would suggest that G.E.Moore's naive argument may have been the origin of the term. I can't find any definite earlier use of the term which would appear to predate his 1939 essay (however, see below), but that does not constitute hard and fast evidence. Interestingly, Moore may have come up with the idea of waving his hands as a response to the skeptical position of Descartes taken in his Meditations: "... I will consider myself as without hands…or of any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these." --TonyFleet (talk) 10:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Early Use: I do not know when the term was first used, but I have found many sources from the 1960s which use the term 'hand-waving' to describe inadequate proofs or arguments. Typical is this quote from a 1964 article in Science: "This is not science, but faith; not theory, but theology. Whether it is hand-waving or number-waving or equation-waving, a theory is not a theory unless it can be disproved." Platt, J.R  Strong Inference, Science,  Volume 146, Number 3642, 16 October 1964. From the quote we can detect that by this time (mid 60s) the term must have been in common use. The earliest definite uses I can find on Google Scholar are:
 * Journal of the American Statistical Association, Volume 44 p 155, 1945 (author unknown) text says: " 'Some Considerations of the History of a Few Nations ' discusses largely in hand-waving terms what happens under various degrees of interclass mobility."
 * A Review of "The Origin of the Earth" by Smart & Singerin Physics Today Volume 9 Issue 2 Feb 1956, who write: "Since the authors are both pure mathematicians the treatment is rigorous and does not make any concession to readers who are only interested in applying the results and who would be satisfied by heuristic arguments and vague hand waving in place of a proof."   — Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyFleet (talk • contribs) 08:57, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The American Mathematical Monthly Vol. 64, No. 1, Jan., 1957 - G.E Forsythe in an article called 'Suggestions to Students on Talking about Mathematics Papers' writes:  "... roll up your sleeves and pitch in, and don't try to prove theorems by waving your hands."
 * The Journal of Business Vol. 33, No. 1, Jan., 1960 - Harry V. Roberts in an article called 'The New Business Statistics' writes: "The argument seems intuitively appealing to me. ... Thus, with a bit of hand-waving over details by this reviewer, we see that a complete logical apparatus for determination of sample size is available-without the need for hand-waving by the statistician "

NB I thought I had identified a possible Even Earlier Use: Douglas Waples “A Program for the High-School Teachers’ Institute,” The School Review 34, no. 3 (March 1926): 199-211. At the time I did not have access to the actual text but the Google search summary appears to say "How to counteract "hand-waving." (M) 42. ... 6. In assigning such classics as Burke's Speech on Conciliation, where the course of the entire argument is difficult to grasp in detail, it is wise to present a simple statement of what the argument is about" However, on obtaining the full text, the 'hand waving' refers to what children do in a classroom to get attention, and the rest of the Google summary is an extract from elsewhere in the text. This shows how Google search summaries can often be misleading!

--TonyFleet (talk) 22:21, 16 June 2013 (UTC)